All posts tagged ‘privacy’

Kincast encourages family engagement around short video messages sent via email

Growing a family is what provided Raul Mujica with the inspiration for his startup company. With parents and sisters living on a different coast, Mujica found it challenging to keep his relatives informed about changes in their lives. “Everyone wanted to know how the kids were doing,” he recalls. “We’d take pictures and email, or post them online. We also took a lot of video. But the video never got shared because it was just too hard.”

To address that problem, Mujica’s company — Kincast — released an iPhone application and website this week to make it easy for people to connect with family and friends through short media messages. Kincast is another entry into the growing market for private video sharing.

Unlike mainstream social video sites like YouTube or Facebook, Kincast is private by default. Videos are shared as links to email addresses, which can be opened whether or not the recipient decides to become a member. People invited to view a video can leave comments either through a webpage or with the smartphone app. Like Instagram and other photo sharing services, Kincast provides some low-barrier media editing in the form of video greeting card templates and Flair, professionally-designed frames, music and titles.

Repeated use of Kincast will also develop into a digital scrapbook over time. As our digital footprints grow larger, our archives become a richer and more important resource to revisit. That’s why Facebook added Timelines and services like Timehop increase in popularity. Kincast nods in this direction by using timestamps and tags to allow past videos to be rediscovered, turning the service into a reflective activity. Continue Reading “Kincast Connects Families Through Video” »

Using your cell phone to snap photos on the fly is incredibly convenient. But you may not realize that your phone is capturing more than your kid’s adorable smile. It’s also recording your precise location and storing the GPS coordinates in the metadata of the photo. You may want to share your photos with the world, but not your exact location. So how can you make sure the images you post are free of location data?

Like other potential problems, prevention is the first line of defense. Most phones have an accessible setting that allows you to turn off geotagging in the camera app. If you’re not sure how to do that, you can call your service provider or phone manufacturer. Or you can google for sites that provide detailed instructions. Unfortunately, there are a few phones that don’t have an easy setting. The Samsung Epic, for example, has no geotagging “off” switch. Instead, you have to disable both the phone’s GPS and all wireless options.

Welcome to another edition of Plug-ins for Privacy! I’m featuring two very different plug-ins for this edition. One of these plug-ins makes standard browser controls more complete, and the other one… well, that’s a surprise. A bloody surprise.

Modern browsers have come a long way in terms of offering their users control over their data. My organization, CDT, released a browser privacy report last year comparing settings that would have been unimaginable even a couple of years ago. Privacy modes? DOM storage control? Per-site cookie options? Inconceivable! Despite all these advances, some important user controls are missing and here’s where Click n’ Clean steps in. This plug-in not only introduces some of those missing controls, its presentation of them is so browser-like one might think, “Why doesn’t my browser have this in the first place?”

This is Click n’ Clean‘s preference screen. The first several options are nothing special; there’s no modern browser that does not allow you to clear your data in some way. The fields afterward, however, are more intriguing. For example, the ability to have a program run automatically once the browser closes is an interesting notion; you could run a cleanup program such as CCleaner to mop up the bits of information the browser can’t handle (such as useless programs and temporary files), or just set up a script to shut the computer down (for those forgetful kids who don’t shut down when they’re done using the Internet), or just run any program at all. You could even have your browser re-open as soon as it closes, if you’re the pranking sort. Click n’ Clean will also delete LSO cookies (information stores for the Flash player), an option absent from most browser settings. This is a feature every browser really should have by now, and Click n’ Clean plugs this hole. Continue Reading “Plug-ins for Privacy: Click n’ Clean and Bloody Vikings” »

Today at 10AM Eastern catch the live webcast of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on privacy and mobile technology. As much as I’d love to see Al Franken conduct this hearing – any hearing – entirely in character as Stuart Smalley, I’m actually looking forward to this for very different reasons. Mobile technology has become so sophisticated, while simultaneously embedding into every aspect of our lives, that it’s difficult to make some important distinctions. What’s the difference between a phone and a mobile computer and a tablet and a GPS tracking device? Hard to tell. It’s even harder to tell where to draw the line on mobile privacy.

[Read more of Jessamyn’s post on why devices that collect time-stamped location data can be a risk at GeekMom!]

This month on Plug-ins for Privacy, I’ll be reviewing a couple of Chrome extensions. Chrome is a blazingly fast browser because it’s simple by design, but does it have the knobs and fiddly bits that help you protect your child from the wilds of the Internet? Speed and simplicity do indeed come at the cost of control, but several browser extensions can put that control back in your hands.

The Internet can be an unpredictable place, but one thing that you can predict is that the major online players want to know where you and your child are browsing. Elements that we’re very used to now, such as the Facebook “Like” button or information pulled from search engines, are fun and useful tools for us that are also subtle ways for others to track us around the web.

Disconnect is an add-on that exists to remove the tracking elements commonly used by social networks and search engines from websites. It doesn’t just remove the tracking ability from the tracking elements – it removes the elements entirely. Once Disconnect is installed, you won’t see Digg, Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, or Twitter elements around the web at all. No Like buttons, no sharing options. Nothing.

As an experiment, I decided to try Disconnect while using Flock. Flock is a customization of the Chrome browser meant to make social networking central to the browser, so you can probably imagine how I tittered and shook in geeky anticipation of what I hoped would be a glorious battle between polar forces. I was not disappointed! As expected, running Disconnect on Flock essentially destroyed most of the key browser functions, a sight which can be either wildly entertaining or needlessly annoying, depending on how easily entertained you are. (I think Jack Black is hilarious, so you can imagine my endless amusement at seeing my browser destroyed.) Disconnect: 1, Flock: 0.

Disconnect seems to be quite comprehensive for what it does, but it’s difficult to tell what it’s actually doing. While browsing Gawker, for instance, I can see that 12 Google items are blocked. What are they? Analytics tools? Contextual search results? Public calendars? What if you want one item blocked but not another? The leash that Disconnect gives you on web services it monitors can be held in two ways: extremely tight and nonexistent, so be careful of “breaking” your child’s Internet.

Privacy Power

Disconnect is quite functional at “disconnecting” you from the services it monitors; you won’t see any common social network tracking elements on websites you visit. However, you also won’t know if you’re blocking something you’d rather see. Disconnect could easily gain a higher score in this category if it were a little more transparent about what it does and doesn’t block.

Ease of Use

Just install the extension, and Disconnect is all set to block anything it’s capable of blocking. If you want to unblock an element, simply hit the Disconnect icon and click the items you want revealed. Unfortunately, you’ll have to refresh the page manually to see those items.

Uniqueness

Disconnect is unique in that it’s very well suited to the Chrome way of doing things. Like the base Chrome browser, it’s extremely simple, unobtrusive, and dedicated to a single task.

Adblock

You can cherry-pick sites for your children to browse (or use the myriad software, browser extensions, and filter lists to do it for you), but you can’t control the advertisements that show up on those sites. There is no software in the world that can predict what advertisements might show up on a website.

I’m not saying advertisements are, by nature, a bad thing, but when they compromise your child’s privacy, they’ve overstayed their welcome. Flash-based advertisements can place lingering cookies on your computer, and location-based advertisements are only going to become more accurate in the future (you don’t really want your child to know about the new Chuck E Cheese’s that just opened a few miles away, do you?). Adblock is a nice way to make sure these advertisements can’t show up.

By default, Adblock blocks a lot. It works by using filter lists to cleanly remove entire divisions of a page that may contain advertisements. The built-in filters are pretty comprehensive (perhaps almost to the point of overkill), but if you manage to find something that Adblock has missed, eliminating an ad area is wonderfully simple. In fact, you can block any area on a page, not just ads. For instance, if you hate Spongebob Squarepants with the fire of a thousand suns and would like your children never to see his hideous visage again, you can use Adblock to methodically remove his loathsome presence from any part of any website.

Privacy Power

Adblock is almost excessively private when it comes to advertisements. The only way it could really get more comprehensive is if it started blocking positive movie reviews on RottenTomatoes.com. The ability to add new custom rules completes any gaps the filter lists miss.

Ease of Use

Like many Chrome extensions, Adblock is dead simple to install and use. By default, Adblock rigidly blocks most advertisements from view. Although you have no real on-the-fly control unless you install the actual button for it (the button is a separate extension), things are self-explanatory once you get to the settings.

Uniqueness

Blocking ads is a no-brainer as an idea for an extension. However, Adblock’s comprehensive filter lists and on-the-fly blocking of individual areas separate it from the pack. The lists that Adblock uses are maintained by a very large, active community of dedicated people – not robots – something other ad blocking extensions can’t claim.

Chrome can be a speedy and private browser that’s child-safe if you take a little time to make it so. More extensions are being written for Chrome all the time, and we can expect many of them to be privacy related. Tune in next month, when I’ll review privacy plug-ins for Firefox 4 (assuming it’s out by then, that it). Until then, be sure to check out CDT’s browser report to get an idea of how all the top browser makers are trying to outdo each other on privacy control. You are a GeekDad, after all.

The Internet is not the private place it once was. There are many online identifiers that can be used to track individuals, from IP addresses to social networking profiles. Unfortunately, children are particularly susceptible to being tracked online. Some of that tracking is benign (for example, tracking progress in an online quiz), while in other cases it’s more disturbing (such as collecting the personally identifiable information of your children and then targeting them with unsolicited ads).

Kids are, by nature, exploratory – especially GeekKids. If left to their own devices, children will lift up every stone on the Internet to see what kind of techno-creepy crawlies lurk underneath, and we should encourage that behavior as much as possible in ways that capture their spirit of adventure and exploration; however, the reality of today’s Internet is that curious kids also leave tracks wherever they go. These tracks can’t be easily cleaned, but you can make sure your own child is wearing some protective metaphorical booties (perhaps with metaphorical Ninja Turtles on them).

In this new monthly column GeekDad has graciously extended to me, I will take you on a tour of sorts, call it “window shopping,” for these “booties” by reviewing relevant browser plug-ins that put control of your child’s privacy back where it belongs: in their hands (or yours, if you happen to be the one turning the dials). Although it would be nice not to have to resort to non-default methods, these plug-ins – for now – are the best way to take back your privacy, until a comprehensive consumer privacy law is passed. So without further ado, let’s begin with this month’s two plug-in reviews. Continue Reading “Plug-ins for Privacy: PhZilla and Web of Trust” »

Online privacy is a matter that we take pretty seriously, particularly when it comes to our kids, though we don’t all agree on where to draw the line. For example, some of us on GeekDad don’t use pictures of our own kids at all, or only use photos where the faces are obscured. Others feel comfortable sharing photos and names; many of us fall somewhere in the middle. We’ve had some posts from various folks at the Center for Democracy and Technology, from tips on raising an Internet-savvy kid to handling Facebook privacy settings. Most of this information is targeted at the parents—it’s what we do as we train our kids.

Privacy Activism, in conjunction with NBM Publishing, has taken a different approach—teaching kids about privacy issues through comics. Privacy Activism is a non-profit organization helping people to be informed about their choices. It’s important to “make the discussion more concrete and relevant by helping people understand the ramifications of the choices that they make in everyday life,” and they’re using comics, videos and games as part of the process.

Networked: Carabella on the Run, written by Gerard Jones and illustrated by Mark Badger, is a comic book about online privacy, targeted at teens and college students and using a sci-fi action story to raise awareness of some of the risks involved. It’s an interesting approach, but does it work?

There is a current campaign on the internet for users to not log into Facebook for a whole day on June 6th, 2010. This comes in response to the recent changes made by Facebook to their privacy settings, especially to the one leaving the default “on” instead of “off.” Basically it became quite apparent that Facebook is in fact, a business, and that your so-called “personal” data was for sale. To economists and investors, this was no surprise at all. They all expected Facebook to make a genuine attempt to make money at some point, and what better way than demographic targeted advertising?

When it came to the users though, the backlash to the recent changes and integration of Facebook across multiple sharing networks has been less than mixed. It’s been negative. There have been constant tweets and articles written about Facebook’s complete disregard for our “personal” data.

The claims are valid. Suddenly, it’s not just your friends that are viewing your updates and profile, it’s their friends, strangers and marketers – unless you change your settings. The setting changes aren’t complex, they are quite simple in fact – but the sudden notification by Facebook is what irked a lot of people. They started to worry about their “personal” data. All along though, within all the complaints and stress about “personal” data, people lost sight of a couple of realities. Continue Reading “The Facebook Privacy War: What is Personal Data?” »

It seems to be the common conception that young Americans don’t value their privacy, and information about themselves, in the same way or as much as older Americans do. However, as I’ve noted before on this very blog, the studies simply don’t bear out this stereotype. A new study, entitled “How Different are Young Adults from Older Adults When it Comes to Information Privacy Attitudes and Policies?,” seems to indicate that Americans of all ages care about privacy but have differing understandings of how to protect our personal information, and often simply lack tools and knowledge to make technologically complex privacy decisions.

[This is a guest blog post by Heather West, a policy analyst at the Center for Democracy & Technology.]

Visit the Food Court to learn about business competition, supply and demand, the history of the FTC, and mergers and monopolies.

Visit the Security Plaza to learn about protecting your privacy (online and off), and protect the citizens of Earth against identity-stealing invaders.

Visit the East Terrace to learn about bogus modeling offers, “free” vacations, “miracle” products, and tip-offs to rip-offs.

I took a trip to the East Terrace and walked into the Clothing Co. storefront. I was feeling pretty and the agent thought I had what it takes to be a supermodel. There is a flash video with the agent. Then a friend comes along to show you the red flags that indicate problems. I was particularly down-trodden when my “friend” told me that the “agent was really flattering. . . but he’s saying the exact same thing to Mama Toni!”

Oh well. No modeling for me.

So I strolled over to the Security Plaza and into the Book Cafe. I helped my new friend Emily put together her online profile page. I helped her add her background information and posted a bad picture. Her mom saw it before she could delete it. Lesson learned. If you post something online, anyone could end up seeing it. For the more detailed profile information, Emily shows you the importance of checking the security settings and why should not publish some information to your public profile.

The Captain Noscam game is more active, blowing up catch phrases from scams like “No Risk, Guaranteed”, mixed among legitimate sales signs. I mistakenly blew up the “Shoes on Sale” sign. According to the game it’s not really a scam. I’m not so sure. My wife always comes home with lots of shoes when they are on sale.

You Are Here is targeted to older kids. You should have guessed from the use of mall as a place of learning. But I enjoyed it too. The animation is good, the stories are good and there is some genuine humor in the stories. An unexpected treat from the federal government.